For all its brevity (216 pages), the best account and interpretation of how Christian ideas shaped, and were shaped by, the Civil War. Not, thankfully, a religious history or a church history, but a theological history.

Another British historian, this time a military one, whose utterly fresh-faced look at the tactics, weapons, and combat experience of the Civil War amaze on every page. Your favorite myths about rifled muskets and total war deflate like a shot balloon.